Lisa Funderburg's Commentary

I went to college in this town. Big mistake. The line that "Dallas is an hour away" was not enough to overcome all the shitty-esqueness that is Sherman. One of the biggest? The mall. Or what they call a mall. It's intricate design confuses those who have a bad short term memory. I once spent twenty minutes looking for the door that I came in because the mall is configured into about five figure-eights that somehow don't always criss-cross. Also, there are no reputable stores that would show face inside. Old Navy was the last and it left four years ago when the new shopping area was built. In fact, it left before the new shopping center was even completed, it wanted to leave so badly!

Midway Mall leaves a bad taste in your mouth and a stench on your clothes, literally. I don't think smoking is allowed inside but no one is there to enforce that. Also, every female must endure walking down the hall of dirty old men. The main corridor has tables set up for chess and other games; those tables are often filled with old men who leer at you and yell after you until you can't hear or see them anymore.

This mall is genuinely dead.

Chris Melton's Commentary

I visited this mall on the first Saturday after moving into Sherman, expecting to find a medium-sized assortment of stores. From the parking lot, the mall looked somewhat busy and had a sign advertising a new "eat in movie theater coming soon", similar to the Movie Tavern chain of my native Fort Worth. More about that theater later. I entered this mall with the expectation that it would be a fairly busy place, being that I visited at 3 on a Saturday afternoon and because the Sherman/Denison/Ardmore area has no other enclosed malls. The nearest malls are either in Frisco, some 30 miles south of Sherman, or in Gainesville, 30 miles west. Sherman does have some decent retail, mostly located around US 75 which includes Target, Walmart, a Cinemark cinema and various fast food and casual dining options.

After entering the mall and looking at an utterly confusing directory (which was several years out of date), I decided to simply walk around and see what was there. Despite having a Dillard's and Sears, this mall is utterly dead. Arguably, the busiest area of the mall was the place where I originally entered under a sign that said "Sears", but led to a canvas tent with some kiddie rides and a candy store. This tent post led to an area of 3 stores, American Eagle, Jak's (which is allegedly haunted), and Finish Line, which is likely the most thriving portion of the whole mall. Walking around, there were entire stretches of the mall where I was alone and not even the PA reached. Some hallways had coke machines as their only source of revenue.

As I walked around, I found the site of the proposed eat-in theater. An active construction site was inside, although I heard no sounds or signs of construction going on. Walking out of the mall and to the entrance showed a construction permit and a door left unlocked. I peeked inside after opening an unlocked door. Let's just say that the 1980s never ended in this theater. The checkerboard pink tiles, neon signs and large popcorn available for $3.75 were themselves blasts to the past of this once thriving theater. I fear that this theater is doomed to the same fate as the mall containing it, which will probably close as soon as Dillard's or Sears moves out to the thriving commercial district on US 75.

Walking back to my entrance gate, I saw not one but two MetroPCS stores, always a sign of a healthy neighborhood, a closed Kingsway Christian College, and a "cash for gold" retail outlet. These, besides the aforementioned American Eagle and Jak's were the only active stores when I was there. The food court had one open restaurant, a sushi bar. The only place I saw families going to or coming from was Jump'n Land, an inflatable bounce castle/birthday party business. This mall is, for all intents and purposes, dead and I think that not even the new theater will save it. Expect this mall to be gone by 2015, if not sooner as the Metroplex expands north and as Town Center and US 75 grow more prosperous.